Grit Your Teeth (Hold onto Me)
by the.eye.does.not.SEE
Summary: [Preseries] "There are some things that will never be forgotten," she told him.


_**A/N** : This was dug up from my "old" (aka, "half-finished and will likely never be finished") fics folder. Got some inspiration today and finally finished one of my old WiPs! I've been wanting to write something to this effect since just about the second O showed up in Jane's memories. 'Cause you know they had an absolutely shit-awful goodbye like this. Enjoy?_

* * *

 _Grit your teeth — hold onto me_

 _It's never enough — I'm never complete_

* * *

He had promised himself that things wouldn't end like this between them. He had sworn to himself—and to her, privately—that they would be adults about it, when the time came. They would have their last long hug, their last kiss; they would say their tearful goodbyes. They would be civilized, proper, polite.

They would _not_ give into fear and desire and instinct.

They would _not_ lash out at each other in the final moment.

He had promised.

But, like all promises he had made over the years, apparently this one was destined to be broken from the moment it had been made.

He found her, in the hour before the procedure was scheduled to start, reviewing designs in the gallery. For a moment, he waited on the other side of the door, watching her through the little window installed at eye-level. Through it, he studied her, and committed this version of her to memory: her long black hair tied up in a loose braid down her back, her pale skin made even paler by the lightboards set into the table, her face bent forward, expression wiped clean as she studied her future with clinical detachment. He took a breath and then, before he could think better of it, he pushed open the door and stepped inside.

She looked up, but there was no smile of recognition at the sight of him, no spark of light in her eyes. For a moment as he walked towards her, he thought maybe he had the schedule wrong, and they'd wiped her memory already.

But then her mouth twitched, the smallest smile flickering sadly, and she pulled away from the drawings, bringing herself up to her full height.

"Inspecting your new makeover?" he asked quietly, rounding his way slowly over to her side of the table. He looked at the hundreds of designs—preliminary sketches all the way up to the final copies—that were spread out across the boards, printed on translucent paper. The better to see, to edit. To place against her body and in order to make sure they all fit.

"Are there any you're stuck on?" he asked, knowing she had railed against some of the designs, and let others pass. He searched the table in front of her for the one she'd been looking at when he'd walked by. "If you're worried about—"

She didn't let him finish talking. Once he was close enough, she reached out and grabbed him, pulling his mouth down to hers as she pushed herself up on her toes, and against his chest. His eyes slammed shut at the kiss, his mouth responding immediately, his hands moving to her hair, his fingers tangling in her already loose braid and loosening it further.

She didn't say anything, didn't ask anything, but he knew already what this was about.

 _One more time_ , they had begged each other, in turns, all this past week. It would be one AM or two AM or three AM. It would be eleven in the morning or five in the afternoon. It would be just before meals, or after, or between briefings. It would be any time, any day, and one of them would find the other, and they would run through their final goodbye again and again and _again_.

He knew what she had been doing this past week—what they had both been doing. Without speaking, they had both arrived at the conclusion that the surest way to remain together was to recreate a memory so many times that it became more than a memory: it became an instinctual, integral part of a person. It became so entrenched in one's psyche and muscle memory that it could not be wiped away by time or distance or chemicals.

It would stay. When all else fled, it would remain behind, tying their two lives together.

Or at least, that's what they tried to believe. That's how they tried to justify themselves—to justify everything.

Her hands were quick. After pulling him close, her lips capturing his, her hands ran down his chest, and tugged at the hem of his shirt, pushing it up impatiently. He helped at once, stripping the long-sleeved t-shirt off and tossing it onto the floor. By the time he joined her again, her hands were halfway through the buttons on her blouse; his went to her pants. She ripped off her shirt, her bra, and shoved her pants halfway down before reaching out for his. The belt around his waist proved a momentary issue, and he helped her, his hands falling from her cheeks to his own waist, where he yanked it out of the way as she reached for the zipper underneath.

They were both breathing too fast, deprived of oxygen, but he didn't care and he doubted from the desperate way she kissed him that she did, either. When he had a chance, he hoisted her up onto the table, working as quickly as he could with his own boots, socks, and pants before turning to hers. Her hands stayed buried in his hair, holding him close, as he stripped them both of what little was left. She couldn't bear, at this late hour, to go one second without touching him. She could not spend a single moment denying them both the only thing they wanted in the world.

He went through his own clothes quickly, discarding them as if crazed, but hers, he went slower with. He yanked off her shoes and socks, but when he tugged at the hem of her jeans, he did so gently. Her hands were tugging at his hair, the tops of his ears—she was whispering frantically for him to hurry, to stand back up—but he took his time. This would be the last time he would ever see her like this: naked, pale, perfect, entirely unblemished. Waiting and wishing only for him. Wanting only him.

Her body was clean like he'd never seen it: there was not a trace of dust or dirt; there were no cuts, scrapes, or bruises. She had been banned, a month and a half ago, from training. She had been bathed this morning for a full-body inspection. She could not show up to the Bureau with any extraneous or unexplainable injuries. She could not go to the tattoo artists with anything but clear and healthy skin.

Still, as he looked at her, made a ghost by the light shining from the tables beneath her, he thought he could see the tattoos waiting: lurking beneath the surface already, like some latent image he could only see in certain lights. He looked at her and he saw all the thousands of times he'd practiced copying the new designs onto her body: he saw the bird on her neck, the snake curling up her side, the inscriptions spread across her stomach. He saw her as he would always remember her, and as he would never see her again.

He kissed her, hard, before that thought could take hold. She would be gone from him, yes—but not yet. _Not yet_. They had some time still. They had one more chance. They had a few minutes, still, to be together as they always dreamed they'd be for good.

She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, hugging him tight as her legs moved to clamp around either side of his waist. She moved to the edge of the table, and then closer, spreading her thighs in invitation. He slipped a hand between them and cursed, ducking his mouth away from hers. She was wet already—he squeezed his eyes shut with a groan as he touched her, burying his other hand deeper into her hair. She gasped at the touch, begging for more, her nails digging into the back of his neck. He obliged, easily parting her with a finger, then two. He kept his eyes open, watching as she threw her head back, trying to get air as she moaned his name, and pressed herself into him. His other hand ran through her braid, yanking it apart none too gently, but she didn't complain, she didn't care. It was the one part of her he could hold onto with all his might and not leave a mark, and so she let him have it, and then asked for more. The fierceness of his touch reminded her that he was still here, they were still here, and so long as they had a few more minutes, she would not pull away. Her hands reached for his waist, closing tight around him.

He shut his eyes, feeling part of his body shut down even as the rest roared to life. He had brought nothing with him. Though he had hoped to, he had not expected to see her today. Their schedules kept them apart for a reason, and when he had snuck over here, abandoning his duties early, he had only allowed himself half a hope that she would here waiting, and alone. He had brought nothing because he had not wanted to jinx this one, last chance.

And now he had ruined it. They had nothing, no protection, and no matter how thoughtless they could both be in their denial of the future and their desire to hold onto what was soon to become the past, they were never that careless. They had already been shown, once, what happened when they chose to forego protection. He brought a hand to her bare neck, touching the place the birds would soon rest, forever making what they'd lost: him and her and the baby they'd had to give up before it had even been given a chance to be theirs. They couldn't make that mistake again.

"I'm sorry," he started to say, pulling away, but she held fast to him, her hands clamping around his hips hard enough to bruise, her legs cinching tight around his back.

"You _can't_ ," she demanded, and he hung his head, unable to look her in the eye as he disappointed her one last time. "You _cannot_ leave me—Don't you _dare_ —"

"I don't have anything," he explained between heaving breaths. "I didn't bring—"

"Back pocket," she told him, and he stopped and stared for a moment, not comprehending. Not willing to hope. When she repeated herself, this time squeezing his sides tight, he understood, and ducked down to the floor.

Just the sight of that small foil package tucked away in the back of her jeans made tears come to his eyes. She had planned for this. Hoped for it. She had had faith that he would come back to her, just like they both hoped, every time they did this, that she would come back to him.

"Give it to me," she said, and he did so at once, pulling her close again for a kiss as he passed over the condom. He expected to hear the rip of the foil immediately, to feel her hands on him, pulling the condom on, and then pulling him inside her. But there was no rip, there was no condom, not yet. But her hands were on him.

He groaned softly when she reached out for him. Her hands were small but their grip was strong, and he swore as she held him, stroking slowly, relishing in the feel of him between her hands, the firmness and the heat that were all for her. When he closed his eyes and bent his head to her shoulder, she told him to open them, to look at her.

"Watch," she whispered, her hands never letting up. He was more than hard now, but that wasn't the point, he knew. "Watch me," she told him, pressing kisses to the rise of his neck, following the curve of the tendons. "When I am gone, remember this. Keep me with you."

He tried to shake his head, but under the strain, it was more like a shudder. He did not want to listen to her say these things; he did not want to think about how he would have no one and nothing once she was gone, nothing but his own hands and what memories of her he kept pristine for this explicit purpose.

He whispered her name, choking it out like a deathbed plea, when her gentle torture had gone on long enough. He could not keep himself still much longer if she kept this up; he could not make their time together last. And that was all he wanted: in these last few minutes together, all he wanted was to use every one up by spending each inside of her.

Finally, she took mercy on him and let him go. She opened the condom and rolled it on, but before she could reach for him, he lifted her up and carried her away from the table. If they made love there, against the table, the backs of her legs would bruise under the force of his body driving into hers. There would be questions; there would be consequences. He set her on her feet, and then lay down on the ground himself. The concrete floor was freezing, but he was too flushed with want to care. He grabbed a few of their scraps of clothing, depositing them on either side of his waist to act as cushions for her knees, legs, and feet. She couldn't be seen with scrapes, either, and he hoped they'd protect her against the friction. His back would be ripped open by it, laid bare against the hard concrete as it was, but he didn't give a damn. After all, it didn't matter what he looked like after this.

She smiled weakly at the care he took—for her now, and for the new her later—and then she took her place above him. She knelt carefully, positioning herself where she could both see and feel him. For a long, long moment, she held his eye as she hovered above him. Then she reached down, took his covered erection in her hand, and stroked him one last time.

"There are some things that will never be forgotten," she told him, and then she sank down, taking him inside of her without once breaking their eye contact.

He held tight onto the bony flesh of her knees, not trusting himself with the gentle, easy-to-bruise curves of her waist, and once she'd found a rhythm—it took only a few seconds—she reached for his hands and clasped them in hers. She held them above his head, bending close over him as she moved, up and down and up and down, careful not to go too fast. Their breaths were coming in hard already, but they needed this to last, _had_ to make this last, and so she did her best to draw it out.

When he asked, thinking himself steady enough to hold himself in check, she let go of his hands, and he moved them to cup her waist, her back, her breasts. He was careful to always keep his touch light enough so as not to leave even the ghost of a mark. She would be under many microscopes, soon. Even the littlest discoloration would show. When she bent low over him to kiss him on the mouth, he cradled her face so delicately it was almost as if he wasn't even touching her.

He whispered then that he loved her, would always love her, and she smiled. For a second, she slowed to a stop above him, and he stilled inside her. She traced the curves of his face—his forehead, his cheekbones, his jawline, his lips—with her fingers. She bent her head, and pressed a kiss to the thumping pulse point in his neck, and then to the drum beating fast in his chest that was his heart. She bent her forehead to his chest then, as if in allegiance. In promise.

"Never worry," she whispered, "that I will love anyone else the way I love you."

Slowly, she started moving again. For as long as they could, they kept things at the gentlest pace, her body hardly moving as it rose a little bit to leave him, and fell a little bit to return to him. She ran her hands over his chest, his shoulders, and through his hair. There was little pressure except what was mounting inside them both, and though they tried to deny it, eventually it became overpowering. She moved faster and faster, and her hands were not soft when they touched him anymore. He kept his hand buried in her hair, so his desperation would not threaten even the slightest mar to her skin, but she dug hers deep into his chest, his sides, his back.

When she felt the end starting to come towards her, faster now than it had in a long while, she bent forward over him, and took his face between her hands. She held it hard, as if she were trying to squeeze the life out of him, or back into him. Her eyes never left his, not even for a second.

"I will remember this," she promised, breathless as she held him close, and moved faster and faster above him, her body tightening for him with each repetition. "I will remember what we've done together. I will remember what we are to each other. I will remember how you feel inside me. Always." She pressed her face to his, kissing him with something like fury. "This feeling will not go from me, no matter what. I swear."

He closed his eyes, pressing his forehead hard against hers as he sucked in breath after breath, trying to survive beneath her assault. Trying not to let her words get to him.

He didn't want to hear them.

He didn't want to listen to her talk about what he felt like inside her, or what she felt for him.

He just wanted to feel it, and never stop feeling it. He wanted this moment between them, this life that they had made together, to go on and on forever and ever. He never wanted anything between them to end.

But she was gasping above him, her throat aching for air as her nails dug into his skin so hard they drew blood, and he knew there was no way to escape the end. He was sweating beneath her, mumbling her name endlessly, tying his hands up again and again in her hair, needing some hold on her as she started to slip away, first from this moment with him, and soon—for good.

She did not silence herself when she came, and he was grateful for it, grateful for the harsh rasp of her voice as she cried out his name, grateful for the way her body bowed above his, for his: her breasts pushing forward, her head thrown back, her whole chest heaving with exertion and desperation and relief and loss.

She stayed above him as he finished—it was quick, just a few more pushes of him inside her—and she helped, murmuring his name, her love for him, raking her hands down his damp chest until he, too, let go.

When it was finally over, she fell down on top of him, pillowing his bare chest with hers, and nestling her face into the side of his. He turned into her, mumbling something about her needing to shower, to clean herself off before the procedure, but she shook her head, closing her eyes as she wrapped her arms, exhausted, around his head and nuzzled close until their noses were touching. She did not make a move to get off of him, and so he stayed sheathed inside her, wrapping his arms around her back.

"Let me be with you for just a minute more," she whispered. "Please."

He did not for a second think of denying her.

* * *

 _Grit your teeth — hold onto me_

 _It's never enough — I'm never complete_

* * *

 _ **A/N**_ _: Thank you for reading!_


End file.
